


twenty

by sunsetozier



Series: milkshake [3]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Again, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Stan is baby, eddie has a temper and sometimes says mean things, lmao oops, richie cries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 00:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20986115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetozier/pseuds/sunsetozier
Summary: Richie is well aware of just how energetic and all over the place Stan and Eddie can be, has seen their spontaneous sides, the way they look when they’re relaxed or when they can’t stop tapping their fingers or when they get so restless that the three of them end up taking impromptu late night drives that always lead to watching the sunrise from a new place that they’ve never been before.However, while Richie knowsthosesides of them, he also knowsthisside of them, too, can’t count how many times he’s had to interfere from them working themselves to death, luring them to take a nap or literally sitting on top of their textbooks until they agree to take a break. And he knows, with utmost certainty, that walking into their apartment will be the equivalent of walking through a mine field, trying to avoid saying or doing something that might make one of them blow.





	twenty

**Author's Note:**

> richie has cried in all three parts of this series so far?? oops. i'll try to make him not cry in the next part. my b.

The problem, Richie has come to realize, is not something they can inherently change.

As in, he has little to no focus, and that’s just how he is. He can’t change that his attention span is short and his mind wanders freely at any and every possible moment, just like how Eddie will always have a shorter fuse and Stan can’t really help the way that he, in contrast to Richie, seems to autofocus on the simplest and smallest of things. They all have their own anxieties, and those anxieties tend to clash.

That being said, while the problem itself is not exactly changeable, the way they handle it is, and that has, without a doubt, been their biggest struggle the past two years that they’ve been in college.

He thinks about that now, as he makes his way up the stairs to their shitty little apartment that they somehow manage to afford with their combined minimum wage salaries. Today is going to be a bit of a difficult day to approach, because finals are looming overhead, and Eddie had an overnight ten hour shift at the dingy supermarket down the street, and Stan is still recovering from a mild stomach bug that he kept working and studying through despite Richie’s best efforts to get him to rest. God knows that the two of them are probably hunched over their textbooks right now, even though they both need a good night of sleep and to just fucking relax for a hot minute.

A bit hypocritical, Richie is aware, because he is practically the definition of whatever the opposite of relaxed is, a flurry of constant movements and fast thoughts and faster words and a horrible inability to just sit still for more than two seconds, but he feels it’s a bit different, while also blindingly the same. Where Richie moves too much, Stan and Eddie tend to move far too little, get way too tense – a similarity that has made them wonderfully unhealthy study buddies since middle school started and studying became a necessity. Not to say that they’re stiff or incapable of being anything but, because Richie is well aware of just how energetic and all over the place they can be, has seen their spontaneous sides, the way they look when they’re relaxed or when they can’t stop tapping their fingers or when they get so restless that the three of them end up taking impromptu late night drives that always lead to watching the sunrise from a new place that they’ve never been before.

However, while Richie knows _those_ sides of them, he also knows _this_ side of them, too, can’t count how many times he’s had to interfere from them working themselves to death, luring them to take a nap or literally sitting on top of their textbooks until they agree to take a break. And he knows, with utmost certainty, that walking into their apartment will be the equivalent of walking through a mine field, trying to avoid saying or doing something that might make one of them blow.

His goal, he thinks, is to get them to eat some dinner and relax long enough to watch at least one movie. If he’s lucky, they’ll be groggy enough by the end of it that they won’t fight going to bed – an easy evening, one that he’s managed to accomplish before. His reality, he knows, likely won’t be so simple, will be much more difficult and will probably involve unintentionally harsh words thrown his way as he tries to tug them away from highlighters and pages full of scribbled out notes.

So long as they end up asleep and he doesn’t start crying, he’ll count it as a success.

As expected, he doesn’t hear the usual shouted greeting when the door creaks open, doesn’t hear the signs of life that he’s become so comfortable with, so accustomed to. There’s no music, to TV, no clinging of dishes or footsteps. The only sound is the quiet meow that comes from their cat, Angel, when she sprints his way and starts to circle around his legs happily. Kicking the door shut behind him, Richie scoops her up in his arms and scratches behind her ears, fully aware that she must be craving attention after spending all day with two boys too absorbed in their studying to give her an ounce of their focus.

Though, to be quite honest, she’s probably mostly upset about Stan not paying any attention to her. Angel and Stan have quite an adorable bond. Maybe it’s because Stan was the one who had stopped at that shelter on impulse one day and came home with her in his arms. Maybe it’s because of something else, Richie doesn’t know, but he has plenty of pictures pinned on the fridge of a half-asleep Stan curled up on the couch or in their bed with a little black furball cuddled against his chest. While Angel does love both Eddie and Richie, she has a clear favorite, and Richie doesn’t mind it a bit.

With Angel purring contentedly in his arms, Richie finds Eddie in the kitchen, sitting on the floor with an almost scary amount of index cards scattered around him in a semi-circle, all of them covered in various colors of ink and highlighter. He doesn’t look too different than he had when Richie left to cover his shift at around ten this morning, but the bags under his eyes from his overnight shift are darker, his hair more mussed up and sticking out in random directions – he still hasn’t bothered to lay down and rest, has probably been awake for close to, if not over, twenty four hours by now. Not that Richie is surprised by that, but it still makes his chest ache a bit, a lump forming in his throat.

Eddie doesn’t notice as Richie enters the kitchen, and he doesn’t notice when Richie leaves it, either, tiptoeing down the hallway to peek into their bedroom. There, he finds Stan, his knees pulled up to his chest, feet resting on the desk chair that he’s sitting in, textbook open on the desktop in front of him. His eyes flicker back and forth as he scans over the words there and jots down whatever he finds important into the notebook pressed against his thighs. He doesn’t look as tired as Eddie, had slept soundly for a solid seven hours the night before after Richie had convinced him to put down his pens and come to bed with him, but he appears much more frustrated, his features pinched and his lips tugged down in a little grimace. Then again, Stan doesn’t get angry as much as he lets on, only plays up faux-frustration for the sake of a joke, so when something does start to get on his nerves, it’s always written clear as day on his features. Richie’s sure that Eddie must be feeling pissed off as well, but his anger is much more subtle, only becoming obvious when his short fuse runs out.

Richie wonders how much of his fuse has already been burned today, flinches slightly at the idea of having to face a fully pissed off Eddie Kaspbrak. Not that Eddie becomes violent, because he doesn’t – the only time any of them have ever shown hints of violence were back in Derry, and it was only ever in forms of self-defense when the Bowers gang targeted them. But Eddie has a particularly sharp bite to his words when he’s angry, and he tends to say things he doesn’t really mean, too heated to realize what he’s saying and only realizing his harshness after he’s calmed down. Richie is well aware of this, and he likes to think he has a thick enough skin to be able to handle whatever Eddie snaps at him, especially when he logically knows that it’s only Eddie’s frustration talking and not what Eddie actually feels, but he will admit that he’s much weaker to words when those words come from either of his boyfriends.

A particularly loud purr draws Richie out of his thoughts, and he finds that Angel is now blinking up at him with wide eyes and a look on her cute little face that almost seems knowledgeable, as if she’s staring into his soul. Then she sneezes, shifts in his arms, sneezes again, and promptly jumps to the floor to saunter off towards the living room, apparently satisfied with the few minutes of affection she got.

Taking that as a sign to move into action, Richie lets out a slow sigh and steps through the doorway, deciding to try talking to Stan first – as stubborn as he can be, Stan doesn’t usually get as snappy when his stubbornness gets in the way, and Eddie will be more likely to give in if both Stan and Richie are trying to pull him away from his studies. Of course, that requires getting Stan to agree to putting his own studies away first and foremost, which is a difficult task on its own…

“Hey,” Richie says, keeping his voice soft just in case Stan didn’t hear him approaching. He settles a hand on Stan’s shoulder, ducks his head down to press a kiss to the curve of Stan’s cheek, and then props his chin on Stan’s shoulder to scan over the words printed on the too-bright pages of the too-big textbook. A bit less quiet, he asks, “Long day?”

“Mhm,” is all Stan replies with, his hand faltering slightly as he leans back into Richie’s touch instinctively, before he continues scribbling down his notes. Richie absently realizes that his hair smells freshly washed, the cheap apple scented shampoo that they bought last week noticeable enough for Richie to be able to detect it, which means that Stan took a shower while he was gone. That’s a good sign.

It looks as though Stan is already about ready to call it quits for the night, if the way he keeps tapping the fingers of his hand not gripping his pen is anything to go by, but Richie knows better than to rely on that little observation and still uses a light tone, making his words sound more like a suggestion rather than an expectation as he carefully asks, “You think you’re ready to order some take out and call it a night?”

Again, Stan’s hand freezes, and his shoulders sag slightly, but he still shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, though there’s a slight smile audible in his voice. “I only have half a page left of this chapter, and I don’t want to stop in the middle of a page. Ten more minutes, tops. Won’t be any longer, I promise.”

Ten minutes will easily turn into twenty if Richie isn’t careful, but he knows that Stan will stick to his word so long as Richie makes sure to come in to remind him, so he nods slightly, gives him another brisk kiss, this time closer to Stan’s jawline than his cheek, and murmurs, “Okay.” Pulling back slightly, standing up straight and taking a half step backwards, he leaves his hand lingering on Stan’s shoulder and takes on a more joking tone as he adds, “As long as you promise to try and save me if the ticking time bomb in the kitchen goes off and causes a catastrophe.”

Stan snickers, places his hand on top of Richie’s and tilts his head back to give him an upside down smile. “Just don’t push him too much, he’s already low on patience and nearly bit my head off when I made him a sandwich for lunch. If he doesn’t give in, I’ll help you once I’m done with this.”

“If I don’t get murdered first,” Richie chuckles, squeezing Stan’s shoulder once, a loving gesture, before finally starting to back out of the room. The slight nerves must linger in his gaze, though, because Stan reaches out to catch his hand before he can turn around, features softer.

“Good luck,” he says, a knowing look in his eyes, comforting smile playing at his lips. “If I start to hear shouting before I’m done, I’ll come out and try to help. Hopefully he’s tired enough to not need a whole lot of convincing, though. God knows he needs to get some sleep.”

Richie huffs out a laugh, nodding his head. “That’s an understatement. You were still sleeping when he got home from work this morning, but I was getting ready to leave and he looked like a ghost.”

That makes Stan frown slightly, his gaze flickering over to look over his work, a contemplative look in his eyes, clearly considering if he should just leave the last half a page for tomorrow or not. Coming to a decision, he lets out a little sigh, turns back around to meet Richie’s eyes, and gives his hand a little squeeze. “Like I said, try not to push him too much. I’ll be out there as soon as this page is done.”

“I won’t,” Richie assures, squeezing Stan’s hand back before letting it fall, finally turning around to make his way out of their bedroom. He means it, too, but he knows that he has the tendency to accidentally say the wrong thing, isn’t always sure when to stop, can’t always read the room or figure out the best time to let a subject drop. Sure, he’ll try his damn best not to push Eddie’s buttons, but he’s an expert at unintentionally pressing every button on the board.

Plus, it doesn’t help that Richie kind of had a shitty day at work, anyway – a hot cup of coffee had been thrown at him by a rich white man wearing a pricey looking suit and a glare, and his shoulder still feels kind of sore from stumbling back against the wall when it happened. On top of that, he ended up having to work through his lunch break because of an unexpected rush in customers that his coworkers couldn’t handle while down a person. His stomach is twisted up in hunger pains, and he thinks there might be a mild burn on his arm where a majority of the coffee landed, and he really just wants to curl up with his boyfriends and their cat with the least amount of struggling as possible.

God, he hopes Eddie is too tired to get angry. He doesn’t think he can handle it right now.

When he enters the kitchen, he finds Eddie in almost the exact same position as before, sitting cross legged on the floor surrounded by flashcards, two textbooks open on either side of him, and a notebook propped up on his knee. He’s only wearing a pair of sweatpants that look a few sizes too big on him, likely a pair of Richie’s or Stan’s that he’d grabbed without looking, and Richie can spot his frustration in the way that his skin is flushed a slightly angry red from the neck down. His hand looks a little shaky as he scans over his own writing and aggressively scribbles something out, writing something else under the crossed out words with a sharp inhale and a clenched jaw.

So, he’s not too tired to get angry, Richie assesses. In fact, he’s already thoroughly pissed off, and Richie hasn’t even tried to interfere yet.

This should go well, then.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, once again taking on that soft tone he had used when approaching Stan, not wanting to catch Eddie off guard with his presence. He doesn’t cross the room completely, afraid to accidentally step on any of the index cards and mess up the order of them, instead coming to a stop at the kitchen table a few feet away and propping his hip against it, arms crossed over his chest. Eddie doesn’t respond, just glances up at him, huffs out some kind of half-assed grunt in greeting, and then looks back down at his work, brows furrowed together in concentration. Feeling as though being too upfront might not be the best choice, Richie chews on his lower lip for a moment before asking, “Have you eaten yet?”

He knows the answer is no, but it’s an easy place to start, putting the idea of getting some food out there without having to outright suggest it. Eddie doesn’t stop writing, his eyes flickering quickly from textbook, to flashcards, to notebook and back again, and his tone is clipped when he answers, “No.”

“Okay,” Richie says slowly, gnawing on the inside of his cheek and trying to think of how to continue. He really wants to avoid pushing Eddie’s buttons, wants to find a way to convince Eddie that he can keep studying after getting some rest – it is the weekend, anyway, and Eddie doesn’t have another shift at work until Monday, and no classes until Tuesday, so he has all of tomorrow to study to his heart’s content – but he isn’t as articulate when he speaks as he would like to be. He can think of exactly what he wants to say, will piece together the words and find the perfect way to approach a rough topic, but when he opens his mouth he’ll wind up saying it the wrong way, a way that is easily misinterpreted and taken with offense, often soliciting a response that’ll make Richie wince.

He doesn’t want to wince right now.

Still speaking a bit slow, choosing his words carefully and hoping that they’ll be taken alright, he asks, “What do you think about putting down your pen and eating with us? Would that be okay?”

“No,” is all Eddie says again, more clipped, more sharp.

“Eds,” Richie says with a sigh, kind of breathes it out uncertainly, bringing up a hand to run it nervously through his hair. He can’t just force Eddie to stop what he’s doing, he knows that, but he also can’t just drop the subject there and let Eddie go on for who knows how long without giving himself a break for food or sleep. Trying to keep his tone light and gentle, he continues with, “Come on, I know you gotta be hungry. I got some decent tips today, so we can probably even order from that Chinese restaurant that you love, the one down the street? Unless you want something else, then we can—”

“Richie, I love you,” Eddie interrupts, his words oddly cold in contrast to his statement, a glare settled on Richie’s figure, “but if you keep talking, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

Sealing his lips shut, Richie takes a moment to consider how to respond, already feeling dangerously close to pushing too far, to pressing all the buttons he’s trying desperately to avoid. Inhaling slowly, he silently hopes that this doesn’t backfire on him, and he says, “Baby, you’ve been studying since you got home this morning. Plus, you were working all night, so you haven’t slept, and you haven’t eaten, and I… I just want to make sure you don’t study yourself to death, you know?”

Letting out a noise that sounds like some sort of huffed out, humorless laugh, Eddie shakes his head and matter-of-factly states, “Well, some of us _have_ to study ourselves to death to pass our classes.”

Richie frowns, scrunches his nose and pinches his brows together. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re a fucking genius, Richie,” Eddie scoffs, shaking his head and shifting his glare down to his notebook, where he keeps writing with slightly more aggression than before. “You never fucking study and you _still_ get A’s on all your finals, even in the classes that you always skip because you think they’re so easy that they’re _boring_. Normal people have to break their fucking backs to be as smart as you, and studying myself to death is the _only way_ to pass my fucking classes.”

“I’m… uh…” Richie trails off, feeling kind of helpless while scrambling for a response to that. He knows he’s pretty smart, knows that his brain happens to work in a way that makes it so that he retains most of the information he needs without having to study it five times over, but he also knows that the things that don’t automatically stick in his head are impossible for him to understand. He knows that school is the bane of his existence, that sitting through classes drains him and seems to rip his soul straight out of his fucking body or some shit.

Most of all, he knows that Eddie knows, too, and he has to remind himself that what Eddie says while this frustrated should be taken with a grain of salt, but it still manages to rub him the wrong way.

Somehow maintaining his calm voice, gentle and cautious, Richie tries again, this time with a different approach, saying, “You can still study tomorrow, after you eat and get some sleep. All three of us have the day off, so we can use the whole day to study together.”

“Study together?” Eddie repeats incredulously, rolling his eyes. “You don’t study.”

“Well, then I’ll be the moral support,” Richie offers, shrugging. “Make sure you guys drink water and take breaks to eat and shit. Keep you two from working too much.”

He speaks in the hopes of drawing out a chuckle of some sort, seeking any sense of ease in the tension hovering in the air, but Eddie just seems to get angrier, grimace deepening and glare getting sharper. Richie shifts his weight, no longer leaning against the table, and barely has time to brace himself before Eddie is gritting out, “Seems pretty fucking ironic how the guy who doesn’t fucking try is worried about us trying too hard.”

It’s not much, definitely not as harsh as Richie was expecting, but it still makes him falter, ends of his lips tugging down in a frown. “Okay… and what does _that_ mean?”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie breathes, leaning his head back to stare up at the ceiling with blatant disbelief, looking seconds away from spontaneously combusting. Instead of bursting into flames, which Richie thinks probably wouldn’t be very surprising at this point, Eddie just huffs out that humorless laugh again and exclaims, “You don’t try, ever! Because you don’t _need_ to, and I’m starting to get real fucking sick and tired of having to work my ass off to pass a class when all you do is fucking bug me like this, over and over and over again. Honestly, Richie—” oh, he sounds kind of terrifying now, voice dripping with something sour and venomous and hard to hear, “—if you don’t just leave me the _fuck_ alone, I’m gonna stop being sick and tired of you bugging me, and I’m just gonna get sick and tired of _you_.”

“Of me?” Richie repeats slowly, carefully, heart starting to pound in his chest in a way that’s borderline painful. “Like, just, all of me?” Then, with a rough swallow and a moment of unsure hesitation, he asks, “What, um… what would you do, if you did get tired of me?”

Eddie doesn’t respond to that – a good thing, probably – but he levels Richie with a look so blatant and obvious that it says more than enough. Then, so fast that he doesn’t see the way Richie’s face falls, he puts his focus back on the work in front of him, a permanent scowl on his features.

Breathing in slowly, Richie murmurs out a little, “Right,” and spins on his heel to make his way out of the kitchen, his head held high and his hands steady and his thundering heart lodged in his throat.

Four minutes later, with a slightly cramped hand and a sense of satisfaction from having finished the chapter he had been taking notes on, Stan enters the room, glancing around in confusion. Angel circles around him with a little meow, leading him to scoop her up, but he still frowns, settling his eyes on Eddie, still furiously scribbling his own notes down, and carefully asks, “Where’s Richie?”

At approximately one in the morning, the front door opens, and Richie trudges inside.

He’s got two bags worth of takeout dangling from his left wrist – enough to last them a couple days of reheating leftovers – and, in his right hand, he’s clutching his keys so tightly that they dig painfully into his palm, no doubt biting the skin enough to leave indents behind. His head is angled down, eyes glued to the floor and hair sort of curtaining his face from the rest of the room, so he doesn’t see the two figures sitting on the couch, doesn’t realize anyone’s there until Stan softly says, “Hey, pretty.”

Instantly, Richie’s head whips up, eyes going a little wide as he looks at Stan and Eddie, curled up on the couch with the TV on, audio muted. Eddie has his knees pressed to his chest, his head on Stan’s shoulder and his eyes a little bloodshot, while Stan has his feet tucked beneath him and a hand playing idly with Eddie’s hair. Richie parts his lips, intending to offer some kind of explanation for having disappeared for so long, but what he finds himself saying is, “Why are you still wake?”

“Our boyfriend ran off,” Eddie grumbles, but he doesn’t say it with any hint of malice or frustration, just kind of sounds mostly sad with the slightest hint of a joking lilt added to his tone. “Turns out we can’t sleep without the fucker, so we waited.”

“Oh.” Richie’s stomach is in painfully uncomfortable knots. “Um. Sorry.”

Shaking his head, Stan holds a hand out to him in invitation, murmuring, “Come here, Rich.”

But Richie isn’t sure he can, not quite yet. Instead, he holds up the bags of takeout, telling them, “I hope you’ve already eaten something, but I got some food anyway. Just in case, you know? ‘Cause, like, I thought that, even if you did eat, we could still—”

“Hey,” Stan interrupts, hand still extended in the air between them. “Sit down? Please?”

“Please,” Eddie echoes, in a kind of shaky voice.

Slowly, knees trembling slightly, Richie nods and steps forward, but he doesn’t take Stan’s hand, lowering himself to sit on the very edge of the couch, every muscle in his body tense and his lungs complaining with every breath he takes. Stan looks a bit miffed by this, but doesn’t try to initiate contact again, resting his hand in his lap and asking, “What’s going on in your pretty little head?”

Richie clenches his jaw, unclenches it, considers how hard it would be to swallow his own tongue, and merely shrugs, offering no verbal response. Eddie watches him carefully, guiltily, and, once it’s clear that Richie isn’t planning on talking, he croaks out, “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“Don’t be,” Richie says, sounding oddly normal. “Stan told me not to push too hard, you made it clear that I was bugging you, and I still kept pushing. I get it.” Eddie frowns at that, and Stan’s stomach clenches, but before either of them can speak up, Richie goes on, voice progressively getting less normal and more hysteric as he says, “And, you know, I also get it if I bug you so much that you get sick and tired of it, and if I keep bugging you anyway and then you get sick and tired of _me,_ and then, you know, when you’re tired of me, and you two decide you don’t want me anymore, then I’ll get that, too, and—and if not bugging you will make it better, then I’ll stop doing it, I promise, even if it doesn’t do much and you still decide you don’t want me, I swear to god I’ll stop bugging you, and—and—and I’ll—”

“Breathe, baby,” Eddie interrupts, scrambling off the couch and falling to his knees in front of Richie, taking his face in his hands with shaking fingers and tears in his eyes. “You gotta breathe.”

But Richie’s mind is truly falling down this rabbit hole now, and he can’t stop the spiral, not even when Stan scoots closer to him and tries to rub soothing circles against his back, or when Eddie wipes away the tears rolling down his cheeks—despite having the loving touch of the two people that matter most to him, he still can’t stop himself as his breathing gets shorter, choppier, and his words continue to wheeze out of him—“I know I don’t fit as well as you two do,” he rasps out through a rough sob, one that shakes his shoulders and makes his chest throb. “I know it and I know you know it and I’ve been—been—b-been wondering when, you know? When you two would notice and—and finally leave me—”

“We are _never_ leaving you,” Stan promises him firmly, his lower lip wobbly and his eyes burning with tears. Richie finally stops trying to force the words out, but his sobs are getting worse, sounding almost as painful as they look, shaking his very core. Taking one of Richie’s hands in his own and still rubbing his back, he asks, “Can you hear me? I need you to hear me, Richie, because we will never _want_ to leave you. The only thing we want right now is for you to breathe, so we’re just gonna breathe, okay?”

Eddie nods, hands still cupping Richie’s face and his cheeks blotchy and sticky from his own snotty tears. “Breathe with me,” he says, trying to sound more put together than he is. “We’re gonna count them, okay? In for seven, out for five. Ready? In for seven… Out for five… In…. Out…”

Richie tries, he really does, but his breath keeps stuttering on the inhale and getting caught in his throat on the exhale, and he gives in, succumbs to the need for comfort, crumpling in on himself and slouching heavily into Stan’s side. Instantly, Stan hugs him to his chest, feeling something sharp and painful tugging at his heart as Richie cries into his shirt. Hardly do they see him reach this level of distraught, but they have seen it before, and they know that this is more than a kiss it better kind of outburst. This is a slowly nurse back to health sort of thing, step by step actions, first helping Richie breathe, then getting him something to drink, getting him comfortable, putting on a movie or music or something to fill the silence, giving him some comfort food if that’s what he needs. And, maybe, in a few hours, he’ll be able to talk through how he feels, and they’ll be able to listen.

But that is a few hours away, and right now, Richie is still struggling to breathe through his sobs, and Stan is trying to have some semblance of composure, and Eddie is crying, too, as he clutches Richie’s shirt in one hand and gently traces circles against Richie’s side with the other, barely managing to choke out, “I’m so sorry if—if what I said made you feel like we—like we could ever not want you—”

“Eddie,” Stan interrupts, voice a bit thicker than usual, drawing Eddie’s attention to him. He just shakes his head once, curtly, because trying to talk to Richie when he’s like this won’t do anything other than potentially overwhelm him, and they both know it. They both know that, while it’s only happened once before, Richie is fully capable of getting so overwhelmed by his own onslaught of emotions as well as the noise around him that he could just simply black out, and that is a terrifying experience that they’d rather not have to repeat anytime soon. Which is why, although clearly wanting to say more, Eddie just nods his understanding and leaves the talking to Stan, who is the most capable of staying level headed when it comes to offering comfort to the people he loves. Pitching his voice to something soft, quiet, barely even audible but still just loud enough to be heard, he murmurs, “Just keep trying to breathe, Richie. Take your time, let it out, but keep trying to even your breathing, okay? We’re here, and we love you, and we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got you, Richie. We’ve got you.”

When Richie wakes up, the sun is streaming in through the living room window, there’s a plate of waffles, eggs, and bacon sitting on the coffee table, and he’s still resting his head on Stan’s chest. He can hear Stan letting out soft little snores, and he doesn’t remember when the hell he fell asleep, but it can’t be later than eleven in the morning now. That, paired with the fact that he feels surprisingly well rested, gives him the impression that he likely passed out around the two or three a.m. mark. Stan, trapped due to Richie falling asleep on him, probably followed shortly after.

Just as Richie’s about to look around for Eddie, the man enters the room, carrying two more plates of breakfast and wearing what’s been officially labeled as his comfort sweatshirt. It belonged to his dad, and is one of the few things he convinced his mother to let him keep, and he wears it whenever he’s feeling down. Richie frowns at that, watches as Eddie startles over seeing him awake, and then croaks out a rough little attempt at, “Hey.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie breathes, rushing forward and setting the plates in his hands next to the one on the coffee table a little bit hazardously, then immediately falls to his knees in front of the couch and cups Richie’s face in his hands, eyes already watering. “God, I’m so—what I said yesterday, I didn’t—I would never—fuck, Richie, I love you so much, and I never want to make you think that—”

“You didn’t,” Richie interrupts, reaching up to lightly wrap his fingers around one of Eddie’s wrists. “That wasn’t—you didn’t make me think that, okay? I’ve been thinking it since we got together.”

Something in Eddie’s features looks pained. “Still, what I said wasn’t okay, and I never should have snapped at you like that, and I—I need to get better at that, I know I do, ‘cause getting angry and saying hurtful things isn’t something that can just be—just be excused, you know? So I’m gonna—I swear to god, I’m gonna try and fix that, because you don’t deserve—you—you deserve better than this.”

“He’s right,” Stan suddenly murmurs, sounding half asleep as he curls his hand around Richie’s hip and sort of tugs him a little bit closer. “You don’t deserve to be a verbal punching bag. It’s just somethin’ we gotta work on to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Eddie nods, still teary eyed and guilty, but he also looks a little bit smug about Stan agreeing with him. Richie just sighs, lets his head fall back to rest against Stan’s chest, too tired to put up an argument or pitch a fit—especially when he knows that they’re both right, knows that working on this sort of thing is the healthier option, because it’s not okay to expect the verbal punches. Still, he doesn’t like seeing how crestfallen Eddie is, so he reaches over, uses the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tears in the corner of his eyes, and offers him a small little smile. “You made breakfast?”

Instantly, Stan perks up, sounding more awake and alert. “Breakfast?”

A soft laugh bubbles up from Eddie’s throat as he nods again, shuffling a bit to gesture towards the plates on the coffee table. “It’s a sort of apology thing, and also a little bit of an I haven’t really eaten much the past few days because of work and studying and I feel like I might die thing.”

“Oh my god, _waffles._“ Stan groans. “Eddie, I already loved you, but I love you even more now,” He carefully maneuvers him and Richie until they’re sitting side by side, reaching forward for one of the plates with one hand. The other hand grabs onto Eddie’s sweatshirt and tugs him closer, planting a kiss against his lips with a smile on his face. When he pulls back, he settles the plate in his lap but keeps Eddie close as he says, “Let’s just eat right now, okay? We can talk about how to handle this afterwards. Okay?”

It looks like Eddie wants to protest, wants to insist they talk about it first and figure out what steps to make to prevent a night like last night from ever happening again, but then he relaxes, nods, and hands Richie his plate before taking the last one for himself and settling into the sofa cushion to the left of Stan, though he sort of throws a leg over Stan’s knee to get more comfortable, grinning when Stan jokingly glares at him for it. Richie snickers at them, leans into Stan’s other side and flashes Eddie a wide smile when he does so. Stan just shakes his head and shovels a bite of waffles into his mouth, but he can’t hide the fondness in his eyes as he glances between the two boys on either side of him.

They might have some problems to deal with, sure—tacked on to the _to deal with later_ list—but right now, they’re cozy, they’re content, and they’re head over heels in love.  
And that is more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is lo-v-ers !! come yell at me if u want.


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